1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method for distributing contents to several users, wherein users are interconnected as members of one or several groups and wherein the group members can be pre-arranged by the user.
2. Description of the Related Art
In today's service world, communication services on one hand and services for communicating contents on the other are clearly separated from each other. Contents are linked to the Internet or the mobile web browsing world and are provided to a user on demand or on a subscribed mode by a server system. Here, for example, websites, CMS (Content Management Systems) or weblogs are to be mentioned. Weblog systems (abbreviated: blogs) are systems to publish personal contents and are based on the homepage concept with the advantage of a very simplified administrative and communicative support. These online journals are mainly used due to private interests, for example, as personal diary, but have in addition certainly also a potential for business use, for example, as company-internal blackboard. Within a blog the contents are ordered chronologically, regularly updated and permanently linked, so they provide interactive functions to the recipient of the contents.
Based on the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) standard, the 3GPP standardization consortium has recently developed a platform for packet-based communication. This so-called IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) standard provides a comprehensive architecture for new communication services. Hence, in co-operation with 3GPP and IETF, the OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) consortium has already developed service specifications for Presence technology, group management (XDMS) or for Push-to-talk over Cellular (PoC). PoC is a service permitting the user to send voice messages to one or more recipients via their mobile phone. The service works according to the walkie-talkie concept, whereas the members of a group first get a signaling via the SIP protocol. Consequently, the voice message is sent via the RTP (Real Time Protocol) in the context of a packet-switching mobile radio connection (GPRS) to the group members. The user can arrange the group members in a push-to-talk menu via the corresponding mobile numbers.
Currently, the OMA strives to develop standard specifications for services for dynamically providing contents (Dynamic Content Delivery, DCD). In several countries, particularly in Asia, there are already products available that push contents dynamically. Just to give an example, the i-Channel of NTT DoCoMo should be referred to. With this kind of services, the user subscribes to a content channel and receives all content updates on his mobile terminal. The concept is comparable to the RSS feed as known from the Internet.